Publications

April 2010 (Revised December 2010)
Case

Shanzhai! MediaTek and the "White Box" Handset Market

By: Willy C. Shih, Chen-Fu Chien and Jyun-Cheng Wang

The term "white box" is often used to describe products without a brand name. Such products are assembled from standardized parts, and they became a very popular category of desktop PCs. Hsinchu, Taiwan based MediaTek is a fabless semiconductor company that unleashed a... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Emerging Markets; Competitive Advantage; Wireless Technology; Semiconductor Industry; Taiwan

01 Jun 2003
News

Unsung Hero

where, with her banking and diplomatic skills, she became a policy advisor to the State Department’s Counterterrorism Finance and Designation Unit. She trains foreign government officials and bankers on procedures for preventing money laundering and View Details

Keywords: Finance

Portrait Project

Joe Nagae

concepts and never become complacent, simply accepting things at face value. "Does the nail that sticks out always get hammered in? Does disruptive technology really disrupt?" I want to embrace new ideas and not be encumbered by... View Details

24 Apr 2014
News

The path to philanthropic entrepreneurship

entrepreneurs. The other part of her week is spent investing in and mentoring CEOs of for-profit companies, “disrupting other sectors with a Clay Christensen hat on, of disruption and improvement for consumers,” she says. (Published April... View Details

11 AM – 12 PM EST, 25 Jan 2018
Webinars: Trending@HBS

Becoming Effective Change Makers: The Power of Networks

Instituting change in an organization or in a sector of society has always been the bane of leaders. However, some leaders do succeed--often spectacularly--at transforming their organizations and even whole sectors of society. What makes some change makers triumph in a... View Details

29 May 2020
Op-Ed

How Leaders Are Fighting Food Insecurity on Three Continents

are experiencing increased food insecurity among vulnerable populations, disruptions throughout food systems, and difficulty getting excess supply to the people who most need it. Responses range from international food programs to... View Details

Keywords: by Howard Stevenson and Shirley Spence; Agriculture & Agribusiness

Web

Olivia Wenzel | MBA

Olivia Wenzel Computer Science Eliot 2024 Cohort 6 Technology will disrupt the elder care space. It can democratize access to resources, enable more personalized care, and bridge social connections. In my journey to unite the power of... View Details

24 Apr 2020

Applying to Business School in Tumultuous Times

Are you considering applying to graduate business school but wonder whether now is the right time? Are you unsure how to prepare a compelling business school application in a disrupted environment? Join the makers of the GMAT exam for a... View Details

Profile

Inessa Lurye

says. "We're in a $12 trillion business moving from paper to digital processes—many firms are merging or going out of business. The Building and Sustaining Successful Enterprises course, which was based on disruption theory, has... View Details

Web

Transforming Education through Social Entrepreneurship - Course Catalog

a wide range of topics across K-12 and higher education. Topics include education reform efforts, adaptive and personalized learning approaches, disruptive innovations such as AI and machine learning, and system-level change efforts. The... View Details

02 May 2005
What Do You Think?

Where is Consumer Generated Marketing Taking Us?

foster disruptive innovation. I was under the impression that ... true disruption would be generated less by popular demand than by hard radical thinking." Flavius Chircu suggested that if we regard... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Gil Addo

The Huffington Post named RubiconMD one of the “Five Companies Defining the Future of Healthcare” and, in 2020, AllianceBernstein ranked RubiconMD number 12 on its list of the top 25 private companies disrupting healthcare. The company... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare

May 2018
Teaching Note

AT&T: Managing Technological Change and the Future of Telephone Operators in the 20th Century

By: Daniel P. Gross and William R. Kerr

Teaching Note for HBS No. 718-486. View Details

Keywords: AT＆T; Bell Telephone; Phone Lines; Phone Operators; Mechanical Switching; Layoffs; Technological Change; Transition; History; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Disruption; Change Management; Communications Industry; Telecommunications Industry; United States

December 2019 (Revised July 2020)
Case

Ray White

By: Boris Groysberg and Tricia Gregg

Ray White is an Australian real estate business that has been owned and operated by the White family for four generations. The business has expanded and prospered. However, as the industry faces new challenges and opportunities, how should the White family respond?... View Details

Keywords: Crisis; COVID-19; Pandemic; Family Business; Entrepreneurship; Leadership; Disruption; Information Technology; Health Pandemics; Crisis Management; Real Estate Industry; Australia

07 Dec 2016
HBS Case

Why Millennials Flock to Fintech for Personal Investing

Millennials are disruptive bunch. The first generation to grow up with the internet, consumers born after 1980 are used to relying on technology and engineering to do almost everything—including shopping (Amazon), listening to music... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Financial Services

August 2012 (Revised August 2013)
Background Note

Competency-Destroying Technology Transitions: Why the Transition to Digital Is Particularly Challenging

By: Willy Shih

Some technology transitions are exceedingly difficult for incumbent firms to execute. The bankruptcy filing by the Eastman Kodak Company highlighted the difficulty companies faced when their core business transitioned from an analog to a digital world. Kodak's business... View Details